Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 16:05:54 -0500
From: jayson harsin <j-harsin-AT-northwestern.edu>
Subject: Re: Adorno and Empirical Sociology


R,
These papers are short, right? About how many pages should I shoot for?
Thanks.
J still in the dissertation gloom
At 10:53 PM 7/21/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>Well I can't say I am surprised that you raise doubts on the possibility 
>of creating an Adorno inspired empirical sociology. Maybe you are indeed 
>right about this, I do not know yet and as far as I know no one has tried 
>answering this question, which was the reason for asking for more 
>reference. I can give you a quick view on my thoughts on it though I would 
>not claim to know that great a deal about the contemporary discussion for 
>instance regarding the theory/method connection as others have.
>
>My Masters Thesis in Sociology is an attempt at reconstructing an Adorno 
>inspired empirical sociology as I believe it could be fruitful. My reasons 
>for this is not wholly unfounded, the Danish sociologist, Henning Bech, 
>has published a book on Modernity and Homosexuality (When Men Meet, Polity 
>Press, 1997) that is to a great extent influenced by Adorno, Benjamin and 
>Kracauer. The crucial point that is influenced by Adorno is of course his 
>idea of 'granting primacy to the object' making Bech insist on trying to 
>grasp the materiality of the lifeworld (our embodiment, use of aesthetic 
>surfaces, the influence on 'moods' or 'tunings' etc). However, Bech is 
>very eclectic and he does not supply the epistemological or methodological 
>grounding on how to conduct this material sociology (or Social 
>Physiognomics as Adorno termed it). This is what I would like to do, 
>especially in the light of some recent interpretations of Adorno that in 
>my opinion makes his thought more contemporary (for instance J.M. 
>Bernstein and S. Jarvis).
>
>My contention so far is that Social Physiognomics has a lot in common with 
>Glaser & Strauss' 'Grounded Theory' approach (a point Müller-Doohm also 
>briefly states in his book). The first step in a research design inspired 
>by Adorno would be to generate concepts by immersing oneself in the 
>context being researched in a manner much the same as the one describes by 
>Glaser & Strauss in The Discovery of Grounded Theory. This would of course 
>involve a lot of different methods ranging from interviews and observation 
>to the (discourse or content) analysis of crucial documents, pictures and 
>the like depending on the object under inquiry. In my own research of 
>women playing rock music the methods used consisted of life story 
>interviews, pictures of the women, observation of them in concert 
>situations, reviews and articles from music magazines and we also had an 
>eye on the function the women had for the music (what instruments did they 
>play, which sounds do these instruments make and how do the women sing). 
>In order to 'grant primacy to the object' it would be necessary to alter 
>the methods used so as to 'fit' the research 'objects'. Knowledge of which 
>methods could (or should) be used is not only to be gained by a prior 
>understanding of the research object or from litterature describing the 
>object but also from the contradictions inherent in the 'Materials of 
>Experience' (hereafter MoE) (Bech's word for empirical data). According to 
>Adorno, the non-identical manifests itself as contradictions in 
>identity-thinking which is the reason why one should look for these in the 
>MoE. We found, for instance, contradictions inherent in the life story 
>interviews (which were our prime source of MoE) - for instance the women 
>denied being harassed while  recounting events that could only be 
>understood as episodes of harassment. By using contradictions as the 
>guiding-line for further inquiry it could be possible to construct a 
>constellation of concepts (or of different 'versions' of the same concept) 
>that would help 'grant primacy to the object'.
>
>While this generation of 'substantive theory' where the concepts generated 
>from the MoE after being connected to each other (and perhaps to some 
>'formal theory') would be the end point for Glaser & Strauss this is only 
>the necessary beginning for Adorno what he calls 'physiognomic 
>registration'. Here it would be appropriate to recall Adorno's distinction 
>between essence and appearance: because of the dialectic of enlightenment, 
>the primacy of identity thinking, that has resulted in a fundamental 
>disenchanment of all aspects of life even of our language and therefore 
>our ability to experience (because experiences are always conceptually 
>mediated) we cannot be sure that things are what they seem on the 
>'surface' (I know this sounds hopelessly unfashionable and metaphysical 
>but I find that J.M. Bernsteins account of Adorno gives his thought the 
>necessary grounding in contemporary debates in philosophy - as I have said 
>many times before I can heartly recommend the book as it is IMHO the 
>Adorno interpretation). The 'essence' of society according to Adorno is 
>its character of totality and from this it follows that we cannot grasp 
>the totality by appealing to only one of its moments (for instance the 
>concepts generated during the process of research) as these moments are 
>themselves mediated by the totality (and thus only the appearances of this 
>totality).
>
>Let me qoute a part from my thesis:
>
>'To obtain knowledge of the essence of society we need to decipher the 
>phenomena, to 'read individual faits sociaux as ciphers for a wider social 
>reality'. Thus, we cannot be content with grounding sociology in the 
>simple understanding of the meaning of social actions carried out by 
>individuals as was the ideal of Weber's sociology. A disenchanted language 
>calls for a more radical approach: 'A dialectical concept of meaning would 
>not be a correlate of Weber's meaningful understanding but rather the 
>societal essence which shapes appearances, appears in them and conceals 
>itself in them' (ItPD 37). This characterisation of the procedure for an 
>Adornian sociology also explains why he calls his approach social 
>physiognomics: if physiognomic is 'the art of judging human character from 
>facial features' (American Heritage Dictionary 2000) then social 
>physiognomics must the 'the art of judging the character of society from 
>its façade', its mere appearance to us. One could wonder how this could 
>be, but according to Adorno this is due to the fact that 'essence must 
>appear' (ItPD 12).
>
>In this respect sociological theories are required in order to understand 
>the social phenomena one has found during the research. However, there is 
>one crucial difference between Adorno's view on this and more the 
>contemporary one that states more or less the same. For Adorno what is 
>needed is not only sociological theory but a theory of the societal 
>totality - a theory of society. Without such a theory it would not be 
>possible to 'read individual faits sociaux as ciphers for a wider 
>reality'. Sociological theories (in the more ordinary sense of the word 
>for instance Mertons understanding of Middle-Range theories) are what 
>Adorno calls the constellation of concepts that emerge from the analysis 
>of MoE. One could of course object to this that it will result in nothing 
>but mere projection of such theories of societal totality onto the MoE. 
>However, in this respect Adorno emphasises the importance of relying on 
>empirical studies in sociology because it 'prevents blindly superimposed 
>constructions', prevents these decipherings to become so utterly 
>speculative that they have no connection to reality. Thus, 'the task of 
>empirical research [is] to protect the concept of essential laws from 
>mythologization' (SaER 84). In other words, theory and MoE stand in a 
>dialectical relation to each other in such a way that theory is generated 
>and adjusted in the light of empirical findings and that these findings 
>are concurrently deciphered in accordance with the theory of society 
>employed. I think this idea of relating empirical findings to theory is a 
>major issue in contemporary debates regarding sociology and its 
>methodology (please correct me if I'm wrong) and I think that Adorno is 
>very modern in his approach here? Furthermore I believe he is one of the 
>only ones to provide the necessary epistemological grounding of the 
>attempt to relate empirical findings and theory. Derek Layder is trying 
>much of the same in his Adaptive Theory approach, but I find his arguments 
>for doing it less than convincing, but me contention is that Bhaskar would 
>be a good place to look if one were to find another person that could 
>ground such an approach. Unfortunately I do not know that much about 
>critical realism. But this is only my tentative thoughts so please correct 
>me if I am wrong it would be a great help in finishing the thesis as well.
>
>I haven't said anything about the distinction and dichotomy between 
>quantitative and qualitative research methods, and it would seem as if 
>Adorno's social physiognomics could only be done by using qualitative 
>research methods. I do not believe this to be the case. Even if it is 
>considerably more difficult to conduct 'inductive' quantative research it 
>can be done (for instance using factor analysis as a useful tool). 
>However, I do believe that Adorno would grant primacy to the qualitative 
>studies as an entry point to the research (as was done in The 
>Authoritarian Personality), but once a first generation of concepts has 
>been done it would be very fruitful to 'test the concepts' using 
>quantitative research methods - for instance as a way of gaining knowledge 
>of the relationship between the concepts in the constellation (as was also 
>done in the Authoritarian Personality when constructing the different 
>scales designed to measure different aspects of personality). In this way 
>there would emerge a dialectical relationship between the two types of 
>research methods. The 'results' of the quantitative research would of 
>course have to be deciphered as describes above in order for them to say 
>anything of the societal totality.
>
>A last remark is that while this has only dealt with Adorno's methodology 
>I also believe that some of the specific methods he used can be and has in 
>fact been revived with great success. The type of content analysis that 
>Adorno did in his studies of astrology and the radio speech of certain 
>right-wing demagogues in USA  should not be seen as typical content 
>analysis. In fact it reminds me more of the discourse analysis approach 
>that is so popular at the moment (at least here in Denmark) - Adorno 
>refers to Benjamin, Bloch and Kracauer as the original 'inventors' of this 
>type of content analysis. He also to a wide extent used music, litterature 
>and pictures as MoE and analysed the traces of the societal totality that 
>lies hidden in these. This is also quite original I believe (we didn't get 
>any education in how to this any way on my university) even if it could be 
>sophisticated to a great deal by more contemporary approaches. Last, but 
>not least I find the use of scales in the Authoritarian Personality also 
>highly original - using the correlation between different scales as 
>evidence for some kind of underlying connection between seemingly 
>unrelated issues (that is they did not appear on the surface to have 
>anything to do with each other).
>
>Well that was all I had I hope this answers your question or even better 
>stimulate you to point out the inadequacies of my understanding so I can 
>learn even more about Adorno or contemporary sociological debates 
>concerning empirical studies.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Claus
>
>
>
>
>At 12:36 19-07-03 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>
>>I have to admit some scepticism regarding the possibilities of creating an
>>Adorno inspired empirical sociology. But I would be interested in hearing
>>here on this list, an argument for what might come out of such an effort.
>>There has been, it seems to me, enourmous progress in sociology over the
>>decades since Adorno came on the scene specifically around the issue of
>>methods (advances in quantitative methods, important work in
>>historical/comparative methods and increasing sophistication in
>>qualitative methods) and the theory/method connection. I am going to try
>>to put aside my relative disinterest in Adorno's empirical contributions,
>>since (putting aside the Lazarsfeld/Adorno issue) it hardly seems like he
>>made many important empirical contributions in the past. I would try to
>>learn to
>>take free kicks from Beckham in soccer, since trying to bend it like
>>Beckham makes sense, since he did does it so well.
>>But trying to study things empirically like Adorno? Seems a stretch...
>>But I would be interested in hearing the core of the argument for trying
>>to build on Adorno's empirical approach, hopefully from someone up to date
>>with recent developments in sociology regarding thinking about the
>>relationship between theory and methods.
>>
>>
>>Neil G. McLaughlin                      KTH-620
>>Associate Professor                     McMaster University
>>Department of Sociology                 Hamilton, Ontario
>>E-mail: nmclaugh-AT-mcmaster.ca            L8S 4M4
>>Phone (905) 525-9140 Ext. 23611         Canada
>>
>>On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Claus Hansen wrote:
>>
>> > Dear list,
>> >
>> > I was wondering if any of you knew any articles dealing with Adorno's
>> > sociological works and especially his visions on how to conduct empirical
>> > sociology. I would also be glad if anyone knew if anyone had tried to
>> > elaborate a bit on his 'epistemology' and how it could be utilised for
>> > sociology. So far I have found the following:
>> >
>> > Stefan Mller-Doohm has published a book called - Die Soziologie Theodor W.
>> > Adorno's (1996, Campus Verlag) that sketches both some substantial issues
>> > in Adorno's 'sociological theory' and some answers as to how one should
>> > 'conduct' Adornian inspired empirical sociology. He has also published a
>> > few articles dealing with the same issue. Then there is the part of the
>> > 'Adorno-Konferenz 1983' (1983, Suhrkamp)  that deals on his methodology -
>> > all in all three articles by Wolfgang Bonss, Jrgen Risert and Ulrich
>> > Oevermann. There is also a single English article by Ryan Drake called
>> > 'Objectivity and Insecurity. Adorno and Empirical Social Research'
>> > (Philosophy Today, Summer 2000). There are of course also a chapter in
>> > Rose's, Melancholy Science and Buck-Morss', The Origin of Negative 
>> Dialectics.
>> >
>> > Does anyone know of any other articles in English, German or any
>> > Scandinavian language?
>> >
>> > Thank you,
>> >
>> > Claus
>> >
>> > 
>> ____________________________________________________________________________
>> > "Hos mange mennesker er det allerede en uforskammethed, nr de siger 'jeg'"
>> > (T.W. Adorno)
>> >
>> >
>> >
>
>____________________________________________________________________________
>"Hos mange mennesker er det allerede en uforskammethed, nċr de siger 
>'jeg'" (T.W. Adorno)
>
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